Seriously Can We Hurry This Up

Some quick updates about the situation donald trump and his alleged RICO buddies are facing in Fulton County Georgia.

If there's good news for trump and his cronies, it's that the judge overseeing matters reduced the overall number of counts they're facing regarding their election interference and fake electors schemes (via Sam Gringlas for NPR):

The judge overseeing the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald Trump and his allies has thrown out six criminal counts from the indictment.

Trump now faces 10 felony charges in Georgia, instead of 13.

Fulton County Superior Judge Scott McAfee agreed to grant motions from defendants in the case to quash six counts in the indictment, writing in an order Wednesday that: "The Court's concern is less that the State has failed to allege sufficient conduct of the Defendants – in fact it has alleged an abundance. However, the lack of detail concerning an essential legal element is, in the undersigned's opinion, fatal..."

McAfee wrote that when prosecutors alleged that the defendants violated their oaths to the Georgia Constitution and the U.S. Constitution, that charge was so broad that it would be impossible for defendants to prepare a defense.

"On its own, the United States Constitution contains hundreds of clauses, any one of which can be the subject of a lifetime's study," McAfee wrote.

McAfee wrote that prosecutors could appeal the ruling or ask a grand jury to produce a more specific indictment on those six counts...

The good news for the rest of us is that the remaining defendants - not the ones who plead already - are still seeing at least one felony charge - such as Mark Meadows, down to a single count of Conspiracy - in a courtroom. Better news is that the infamous audio of trump himself pressuring Georgia's Secretary of State to overturn the vote count is still admissible as evidence in some of the charges trump and others are facing, although McAfee will likely limit its use.

There is a door left open for DA Fani Willis to bring back the grand jury to refile charges on more specific claims, but given the number of counts still on the table she may decide to proceed with what she has (refiling runs the risk of getting overturned again over those specifics and delaying the trial further).

Speaking of Willis, she had been facing a disqualification hearing by the defendants over an "inappropriate relationship" with a special prosecutor hired to work on the DA's team. Judge McAfee issued his ruling today on that, essentially clearing Willis but requiring the man to quit the team to "avoid any impropriety" (also Gringlas for NPR):

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis accepted the resignation of Nathan Wade, her top special prosecutor in former President Donald Trump's election interference case, after a Georgia judge made Wade's stepping aside a condition of allowing Willis to remain on the case.

The decision bolsters chances that 15 defendants including former President Donald Trump will face trial in Georgia for attempting to overturn the 2020 election result.

In a 23-page ruling that followed hours of dramatic courtroom testimony last month, Fulton Superior Judge Scott McAfee ruled that Willis' romantic relationship with Wade, the top special prosecutor she hired, created the appearance of a conflict of interest, but did not require her disqualification.

McAfee wrote that, "an outsider could reasonably think that the District Attorney is not exercising her independent professional judgment totally free of any compromising influences. As long as Wade remains on the case, this unnecessary perception will persist."

McAfee gave prosecutors a choice: If Wade does not resign from the case, Willis must step aside and "refer the prosecution to the Prosecuting Attorneys' Council for reassignment."

Willis, in a letter accepting Wade's resignation, said she complimented him for "his professionalism and dignity..."

During a multi-day evidentiary hearing last month, lawyers sparred over when Willis and Wade's relationship began – and over the veracity of their claims that Willis reimbursed Wade in cash.

As prosecutors fought a subpoena for Willis to take the stand, the district attorney appeared in the courtroom and declared that she wanted to testify. Willis and defense attorneys sparred over intimate personal details, the testimony became so tense that McAfee had to call for a five-minute recess.

In the end, McAfee found that, "the evidence demonstrated that the financial gain flowing from her relationship with Wade was not a motivating factor on the part of the District Attorney to indict and prosecute." And he wrote that the defendants failed to show how Willis' conduct influenced the case.

So Willis stays on as lead prosecutor in the Fulton County matter. And those defendants have to be fully aware that she is going to be pissed at them for dragging her personal life - the primary tactic of conservative wingnuts when deploying the Politics of Personal Destruction - into their political bullshit. Any of them considering getting a plea deal now better do before she gets them on the stand.

With all this sturm und drang going on there's still a question of when the actual trial in Georgia is going to take place, considering how packed trump's calendar is facing 91 88 felony charges across four courtrooms. But things are on hold with the federal cases while the Supreme Court considers trump's claims of Absolute Immunity - not until late April, and then further delay until late summer issuing a ruling - and now with the New York "hush money" trial on a 30-day delay due to a questionably late delivery of thousands of federal documents trump claims is needed for his defense.

I may have jinxed things last month when I blogged that trump's judgment was coming, in spite of how trump repeatedly finds ways to delay every court challenge he faces.

Goddammit, American legal system. You're playing into trump's only legal tactic - Delay, Delay, DELAY - he's got. Stop playing by his rules and get his ass in court.